Forever and Always in My Heart

December 13th, 2014 will never be another typical day of my life. It started off with my normal Saturday morning routine which involved going to work, going for a run, and then later on in the evening, coming up with some unexpected plans with my friends. A fun hobby of mine is going ice skating and that is exactly what I did that evening. I arrived home from ice skating and immediately got into dry warm clothes as I just sprawled across my bed with my phone in my hands eager to see what new messages or facebook notifications I received.
8:43 P.M, the time I will never forget. My arms and legs grew numb and my stomach tightened and sunk low to my feet, my appetite no longer existed as I smelt the late night pizza cooking upstairs. My head so dizzy and my eyes so blurred. My heart felt as if it got stabbed not once, but multiple times, grasping for each and every breath. I couldn’t hear my music playing anymore, I couldn’t hear my dog barking from the outside, but I could hear the disbelief thoughts scrambling through my brain taking over everything I have learned in my life. My dear friend, Ross Blomgren got taken away from me and left this Earth, I couldn’t believe that I would never be able to laugh with him again, sing with him, talk with him, and the biggest thing that hit me, I would never be able to get a tender, warm hug that I would get from Ross Blomgren.
I met Ross in the summer of 2014 where we met up from hundreds of miles away to join together in a 24 day intensive arts experience, 4-H State Arts-In. Little did I know, that meeting him would of had an enormous effect on my life like it did. This program we were both involved in had a main focus of just living, working, and building friendships with other teens across the state of Minnesota in preparation for the Minnesota State Fair. When leaving that year, I could definitely state a friendship I built from nothing but a name tag to something that I didn’t think I could live without.
Even though that I knew Ross for five months, that time seemed more like five years. I will always cherish the picture of us wearing the same Captain America shirt because we both thought we would be the best super heroes to ever exist. All the funny random quotes to all the funny jokes left me with a stomach ache from laughing so hard. Not only did I learn to live life to the fullest without barriers that block the things that make me so unique, but I also learned some tips in life that just made life a little more spontaneous. I never thought that eating a cupcake would ever be conveniently easy to eat. It became possible when Ross showed me that if you split the cupcake into two parts and stick them together using the frosting on top of the cupcake, what you now created was a filled cookie. It’s hard to not think about him every time I take a bite out of a cupcake cookie. When I left the State Fair, that didn’t mean for the friendship to dwindle away. That meant that we were able to grow closer together as friends by having random conversations about potatoes to sending double chins through snapchat.
In November, activities and school started to take control of my life where I didn’t stay as in touch with people who meant a lot to me because distance was one of the biggest set backs. The biggest thing I was able to cherish about our friendship was the fact that we were able to pick up wherever we left off of even though sometimes it would be two weeks since we have talked. My last message I had sent Ross was on December 13th Saturday at 4:30. I decided to start to catch up where we left off of, and I decided to send him the message, “Hey Ross, How are you doing these days? This Christmas break, no doubt about it, we are hanging out with all the artsies!” I didn’t hear from him right away, so that’s why I decided to go ice skating hoping to receive a message from him. When I received a message from Ross and I’s mutual friend, she had informed me with the tragic news that he had been in an car accident that ejected him from the car and killed him instantly.
That numb feeling never has gone away but my view on life has changed. Knowing that Ross may of never read that last message I sent him, goes deep down inside of me. When someone tells you that you never know how hard it is until you loose someone so special in your life, it's true. Even though Ross is not with me here, I am still able to remember all the good times we have had. I live with this numb feeling now in my life, but that doesn’t stop from being who I want to be. Some things in life just make it harder to feel and that’s okay! As Ross would say, “Ya man!”